Volume 2, Chapter 7 – My Cheap Mom’s Ex?

Question: What happens if you use a Holy Art on a Saintess who has Holy Light dwelling within her body?

Of course… nothing happens.

Even a cleric who had only just joined the Holy See knew that the essence of Holy Arts lay in the resonance between powers of the same origin and the circulation of grace.

Trying to attack a high-ranking Saintess with a lower-tier Holy Art was logically absurd, like trying to drown a fish with a basin of water.

Stella did not even know what to say.

All she could say was that the Professor really knew how to pick people.

“Do your best, President,” Dorothy said from beside her, clenching both fists as she cheered her on. “Please make sure everyone sees that the purest, most orthodox heir of the Queen of Eternal Night would never fear so-called Holy Light.”

Stella turned her head and stared speechlessly at the Propaganda Officer, who had gotten herself worked up all on her own.

‘Please don’t…’

She was a bona fide succubus now, and had even been officially designated the evil illegitimate daughter of the Pale Lord and the Valentine Family Head.

In other words, no matter what Professor Katerina did to her, even if it only tickled, Stella still had to put on an act and cry out in pain a couple of times. Otherwise, it would not fit her current bloodline.

‘What a pain.’

Stella stood beside her seat for a moment and calmed herself down slightly before walking toward the podium to receive Professor Katerina’s Holy Art flogging.

“When facing Holy Arts, the most fundamental countermeasure isn’t complicated analysis or deflection, but using magical power to form a barrier.”

“Step one, receive. Use magical power to envelop the Holy Art’s impact. Don’t dodge or evade. Confront it head-on.”

“Step two, neutralize. Use magical power to erode the spell’s structure and reduce it into harmless spiritual particles.”

“Step three, release. Deflect the remaining impact outward, thereby emerging completely unscathed.”

“We generally call this receive, neutralize, release.”

Professor Katerina stood at the podium, her gaze sweeping across scroll after scroll of Holy Arts flickering with faint light.

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There was everything from the most basic Chastisement to the mid-to-high-tier Light of Commandment. For today’s Defense Against Holy Magic class, she had practically emptied the school’s entire stock of scrolls. Principal Gehenna had bled quite a bit for this. After all, if the ghost attacks continued, more students getting injured would inevitably lead to accountability and investigations.

“Holy Light is proud and exclusionary. It will seek out every crack of darkness and burn its way inside. Assistant Stella, if you’re even a second too slow, that feeling… will stay with you for the rest of your life.”

Professor Katerina’s gaze settled on the most basic Chastisement.

“Then, are you ready?”

“…Wait a moment, Professor.”

Stella spoke hesitantly.

‘Receive, neutralize, release?’

She had never even heard of that before.

When it came to casting Holy Arts, she could do it as naturally as breathing, but she had never tried learning how to defend against herself.

Before Stella could fully make sense of it, Professor Katerina had already torn open the first scroll without the slightest warning.

“A ghost attack won’t give you time to hesitate!”

“——Chastisement.”

A bright point of light shot toward her in an instant, like a shard of glowing metal, followed by countless more fragments of brilliant light.

Stella had originally intended to follow the Professor’s instructions and use magical power to receive it, but the instant the Holy Art touched her, it was like a child who had been away from home for years finally seeing its own mother. With a slick little whoosh, it burrowed straight into her body.

Warm and cozy, as though her entire body had been gently smoothed out until every last part of her felt perfectly comfortable.

“Eh?”

Stella froze in place.

Not only did she feel no magical impact whatsoever, it was so comfortable that she almost wanted to narrow her eyes in pleasure.

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And so, under the terrified, expectant, or simply unable-to-watch gazes of all the succubi in the class, Stella stood there like a block of wood.

One second.

Two seconds.

Three seconds.

Crap, I forgot to act!

“…Ah.”

Stella gave a deliberately affected little cry.

She even tilted her head along with it, trying to make herself look as though she had been injured.

Katerina’s expression instantly darkened until it looked as though ink might drip from her face.

That deliberately sluggish and utterly perfunctory attitude was, in her eyes, nothing less than outright mockery.

She could not even be bothered to use the defensive technique Katerina had instructed her to use, instead arrogantly choosing to endure the Holy Art directly just to flaunt her uniqueness?

‘…As expected of her descendant.’

‘Exactly the same arrogance.’

“Good. Very good… It seems lower-tier scrolls are nothing but an insult to a genius like you.” Professor Katerina casually swept her hand over the row of scrolls on the table, her voice icy. “Our lesson needs something with a little more substance.”

“Wait, Professor, that’s not what I meant.”

Stella reached out to stop her, but Professor Katerina had already torn open another scroll.

“Second Rank, Holy Shackles.”

Nothing happened.

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“Third Rank, Radiant Impact.”

Nothing happened.

It was even pleasantly warm, making Stella want to yawn.

“Fourth Rank, Judgment Cross.”

Light surged through the Defense Against Holy Magic classroom in wave after wave. What had begun as faint flickers of light gradually became so brilliant that the entire oval classroom was nearly illuminated as brightly as daytime.

Katerina’s movements grew faster and faster as she continuously tore open the Holy See’s Holy Art scrolls.

She breathed heavily, cold air lingering in her lungs. Her body visibly trembled with agitation, like a fish struggling in the mesh of a net, moonlight twisting across her body into countless silver scales.

Stella stood there at a complete loss, maintaining the innocent expression of someone with her head tilted slightly to one side.

Meanwhile, the succubi below the podium were completely dumbfounded. Dorothy especially looked as though the worship in her eyes was sparkling.

Only when the final batch of scrolls had been exhausted did Professor Katerina finally calm down.

“…Professor, are you alright?” Stella asked softly.

At this point, she no longer knew what she was supposed to do.

At first, she had still been able to put on an act and cry out a couple of times to cooperate, but Professor Katerina seemed to become even more agitated because of that. So Stella had simply fallen silent and let Professor Katerina do whatever she wanted.

‘Come to think of it, this batch of scrolls must have cost Principal Gehenna quite a lot of money, right?’

‘You really know how to burn through money, Professor.’

“…Assistant Stella.” Professor Katerina raised her eyes and stared faintly at Stella. “No matter what kind of scroll I use, you refuse to use the techniques I taught you to defend yourself?”

“No, Professor, I really did just now…”

“You clearly possess SSS+ talent. You could easily learn such a simple defensive technique, yet you deliberately insist on using this almost masochistic method. You’d rather use your own flesh to dissolve the Holy Light than give up the chance to humiliate the caster.”

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“Such identical arrogance,” Katerina murmured softly. “Your personality really is exactly the same as your mother’s back then…”

Stella blinked blankly.

‘Mother?’

‘What mother?’

‘Which one of her mothers?’

If she meant her cheap Valentine mom, the bitter resentment written all over Professor Katerina’s face did not exactly look like some simple feud between families.

But if she meant the Pale Lord who had once turned the Demon Realm upside down…

“Could it be…”

Listening to the near-grief in Katerina’s voice, Stella vaguely formed a guess.

‘Loved and abandoned?’

‘Love turned to hatred?’

‘…Please don’t.’

Translator Note

Seems Katerina had trauma with the Pale Lord TvT